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An old redpill/manosphere saying was "Men are the real romantics, while women are, at the end of the day, the hardcore realists"
Validity of that statement aside, I think your phrasing is far better and more inclusive of real cultural dynamics.
Is this not self-evidently true? Societies with weaker social/cultural/legal system infrastructure have higher rates of physical violence, SA, etc. There's the infamous (repeated!) studies on Papua New Guinea pointing out how it's Heart of Darkness levels of pain and chaos.
Does this mean that inside the heart of every man is an eager but repressed rapist? Of course not. That's on-its-face wrong. The entire point of well developed social/cultural/legal system development is to leverage the inherent social conformist nature of humans to build broad pro-social patterns of behavior. In fact, those who fail to conform in the extreme are either/both (a) locked up permanently and/or (b) labeled as cognitively malfunctioning. This is a good thing. What could be looked at as "boys will be boys!" behavior to an A.D. 1000 viking is now seen as "criminally insane and unsafe for anything besides lifelong warehousing."
Well if it takes a well developed cultural system to leverage us into not behaving that way, then are we not just repressed rapists? Just ones buried under years of conditioning? Teach men not to rape indeed..
Just to be clear I don't 100% agree with Hobbes here, though I think it is as you say partially true. Just noticing the similarity in positions between somewhat feminist thought and the Hobbesian conservatives.
You're right. And it wasn't lost on me the weird parallel between Hobbes and feminists that emerged when I wrote the response. I can't say I've totally wrapped my own head around it. All of us Trads do say "We need trade values or else society will fall apart." But it's couched heavily with the idea of personal choice; "You can choose to not follow Trad values, but then your life is going to be shitty." I'd contrast that with the progressive concept of culture which is fundamentally authoritarian; "You MUST adhere to the approved cultural norms, or else you are dangerous and will be excluded from society."
"Teach men not to rape" is too far of an extreme because I think the implicit assumption is that men are born with the rape module turned up to 10. I don't think this is the case. Men (and women!) are born with the basic mammalian firmware desires for food, water, shelter, reproductive activity. The duty of society is to teach men and women how to go about fulfilling these fundamental needs in pro-social ways.
Appreciate your comment. One of the better "stop and made me think" situations I've had on here in a while.
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